


you're holding onto your grudge

by sorry_dad



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Isolation, M/M, for oswald's mother of course, i guess idk, i guess?, mommy angst specifically, oswald cobblepot/water itself, weird tags to ensure comfort, why am i like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8623150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorry_dad/pseuds/sorry_dad
Summary: the draft of this was titled: "Oswald is a big baby momma's boy and Jim Gordon doesn't know how to show he cares." a really long, dramatic rumination on Oswald existing in the limbo times after he loses his mother. lots of liberties.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this includes a beach that i decided exists in gotham. 
> 
> fuck it.

Oswald often finds solace in thinking of the past. Be the events sad or not, he finds peace in knowing things have occurred, he has survived, and he believes himself stronger because of it. (Or at least, so he tells himself.)

In his recent years, Oswald finds himself directed to the water. He wanders to it, stares into his own reflections and runs through his remaining memories.

Sometimes, he'll sit in the bathtub and think about his mother. He'll work the water through his hair with shaking, halting movements, fingers that never sit still, and he'll try to imagine she's there.

He's become better at it. He finds a way to soften the touch of his own fingers on his neck, to position himself so the vent feels like her whistling into his hair; to make it all seem less hollow. 

Often, it works well. It works until he opens his eyes and sees the emptiness reflected behind him, a reflection of his own lonely face crowned in soap suds. 

_The King of Gotham. Right._

In these moments he decides he ought to just start taking showers; he's too old to be sitting in the bath like a child, playing with foam and water. Though, when he goes to stand under the showerhead, his leg throbs until he settles into the tub, gasping for air around the pain. The water swallowing his limbs pulls the hurt away, softens the muscles that are torn and twisted around shattered bone. Somehow, part of his is soothed by the routine that feels empty without his mother there. He cries, sometimes, surrounded by reminders of his own singularity. 

He dips his head under the water and drinks in the silence. The world always seems louder when he is forced back up for air.

_Birds flock together, penguins especially._

_He wonders why he's such an exception._

With a rising empire, Oswald comes to own plenty of different estates that work to his varying interests. Plenty of places to conduct business, to hold meetings, or just to be alone, as he often is. 

Little condos, homes on elegant hills, whole communities. He pays for very few of them.

One of his favorites is a beachside estate, hundreds of thousands of square feet in a mansion that opens up to the shoreline. The beach up north is cleaner than the pier he was so gracelessly thrown from; the water is clean and the sand is soft, a pearlescent off-white that goes on for miles. Oswald owns the whole beachfront, a fence on either side to keep himself secluded.

It's symbolic of his title, keeping him away from people while in a habitat all his own. (Granted, if someone were to come up and press their sweaty face to the fence, desperate to catch a blink of the  _penguin_ himself enjoying his solace, they would find nothing of the sort. They would also, predictably, die before getting a chance to see much else.

In his times of privacy, Oswald is not very forgiving.)

The underwater silence is easier to reach, here. The beach takes a five-foot drop some feet from the shore, dunking you into the dark abyss that changes shape and form with the waves. Oswald slides into this drop and lets his head fall beneath the subtle current, waves moving what little hair he has around his head in a way that is reminiscent of mermaids. 

He does not find himself so elegant. 

Above the water, Oswald doesn't find himself assaulted with noise in the same way he does in the bath. The world is quiet, tranquil for miles and miles ahead of him, just water and nothing else.

Repeatedly, he dives beneath the waves and sits for as long as possible, eyes forced shut and mind purposefully blank. Each time he goes under, he stays for a little longer, pushing himself that much further toward the eternal silence. (In death, he sees his mother. In death, he sees peace. In death, he is no longer the Penguin, but Oswald Cobblepot, a man of many mistakes and many victories, escape artist and professional survivalist.) 

From his seat at the shore, Gabe occasionally finds himself panicked. Gabe has lifted his boss from the water, dazed and slightly upset, more often than he likes to think. He'll bring Oswald in a few feet, apologize for disturbing him, and watch the man do it all again.

He worries for his boss' health. 

Gabe will state, offhandedly as he moves away Oswald's paperwork, that it's funny how much he likes the sea. 

"It is nice, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," Gabe packs away folders and pocketbooks, stacking receipts, "much better than that bay, back in Gotham." 

For some time, Oswald doesn't speak. He breathes in the salty air, exhales into his glass of expensive wine. (He can't remember the name, he doesn't care to know how old it is, all he knows is that this is the second bottle he's opened tonight.)

"This could never compare to Gotham," he finally says, now taking a swig from the bottle, pitiful in his silk night suit, "compared to her, this is squalor." 

Gabe doesn't understand. He never will and he doesn't know that he ever wants to. 

What he does know, is that after losing his mother, Oswald loves Gotham more than he will another person.

He will meet people like Jim Gordon, like Edward Nygma, like Barbara Kean, like Victor Zsasz, like Butch Gilzean and Harvey Bullock and Fish Mooney and Carmine Falcone and even the little Wayne boy and his guardian; he will admire these people. He will adore and admire them all in their own right, but he will never love them. In no fraction of the word. 

These people all have a part of Gotham within them, some more than others, but that pull is nothing to Oswald. It's nothing compared to the sensation of Gotham cement beneath his feet, or even his cheek. 

It's nothing compared to the way the planks on the pier creak beneath his unsteady steps. 

This is where Jim finds him. At the pier.

Maybe it was a call from an unknowing good citizen, concerned for the man wavering on the pier. Maybe it was one of Oswald's many underlings, hired or bound by unpaid debts, calling for the sake of their overseer. (Despite his violence and childishness, Oswald is a good boss, he pays properly and keeps an eye on assets where he should.) Jim will never tell who sent him down there, who knew he worried enough about Oswald to visit a place riddled with ghosts. Maybe it was his own intuition. 

One of Oswald's fancy Italian shoes has fallen victim to the murky, gray water, sliding untied off of his frail foot. He knows Jim is there, but he doesn't bother speaking. Jim fears silence, he'll fill it soon enough. 

"What are you doing here?" 

_There it is._

"Minding my business," Oswald's voice is a peaceful whisper, something that feels at home with the wind that blows over the water, "perhaps you should do the same."

"You know I don't do that."

"Ah, yes, of course." Jim joins him at the pier's edge, standing awkwardly, a suspicious red stain some feet away on the rotting wood. 

"What?"

"Ever the meddler, you are. Unable to let anything go. Not even for your own good."

"Are you going to kill me if I sit down?" 

Oswald goes silent for some time, shrugging eventually, "I suppose not. I haven't the energy." 

"That's unlike you."

"And how would you know,  _James_?" 

"You are how you are," Jim finally says, rough voice softened by Oswald's aggression, by how dangerous his proper name sounds on Oswald's viperous tongue, "what can I say?"

"You speak as though we're friends."

"Aren't we?"

The silence that builds between them is thick, a brick wall made of water molecules and the smell of rusted metal. Oswald's other shoe starts to slip from his foot, preparing for the dive in to meet its partner. He does nothing to stop it, feet swinging childishly. (Oh, how he wishes he was a child again. How he wishes he could go backward, full of awareness and wisdom. How he wishes he had just walked away from Fish Mooney's when he saw the line of beautiful girls waiting outside. He wishes he'd have known what Fish's claws on his cheek had meant, what those perfectly painted nails had promised him when they drew blood. His face aches at the memory and he wonders, vaguely, when he started grasping for the life of crime he now works so hard for.) 

"I have a very distinct memory," Oswald says, gritting his teeth, "that we are not. You said it yourself, Detective."

"Come on, Oswald," hearing Jim call him by his name makes Oswald's ribcage ache, as though he's been kicked again, "don't be like that." Distantly, the sound of his shoe plunging into the water punctuates the conversation. 

The ribcage ache spreads, breeding quickly through bones and muscles, taking over his whole torso. Everything hurts, it all burns, and suddenly the warmth of all the whiskey he consumed is no longer welcome in his stomach. Oswald starts to sweat. 

It all becomes too much for him, in the moment. He's overwhelmed and stressed out and his body hurts and he  _really_ doesn't want Jim Gordon right here beside him. 

There's a bruise blooming on his right eye, scrapes along his chin and neck, and a fair gash along his left arm. Oswald's umbrella is broken, bent in half where he fended his attackers off. Suddenly, it all settles in, and he feels the pain everywhere. 

He wishes for his mother. He wishes for the great silence. He wishes that he couldn't hear Jim Gordon breathing beside him, couldn't feel him radiating warm heat and the desire to do good, couldn't feel him worrying from such a distance. 

"What happened to you?" Jim's voice is soft, completely disconnected from the body it comes from. He takes stock of the bruises, of the way Oswald has one hand clamped down around a spot on his side. 

"I lost the only thing I ever had, Jim. She's gone."

"I meant your face," he sighs, leaning back onto his palms.

"What does it matter?" Oswald's face twists into an ugly contortion of sadness, his voice follows suit, "When my mother was alive, she would always worry about me. I put so much effort into running away," Jim laughs bitterly, agreeing, "for her sake. With her gone, what's the point?" 

It all comes out much more pitiful than Oswald had intended. Although true, he hadn't intended to make so much of his misery clear. 

The silence returns. Jim watches Oswald's shoe float away, taken by the currents, before finally sinking. Too much water overtakes the body, sank it from the inside. Once it falls beneath the surface, Jim doesn't see another sign of it, the water is too murky.

Once it sinks, it's as though it ceases to exist. 

Beside him, Oswald stares longingly at the water where his shoe exited reality. 

Slowly, Oswald slides enough that his feet touch the water. Once there, it all comes easily. He slides further, weak and finally dismantled in the face of emotional exhaustion. He's been running on empty for months, working himself half to death in order to avoid having to face his own feelings.

_His mother._

_Arkham._

_Jim._

_Arkham._

_Arkham._

_Arkham._

_The nightmares._

_Arkham._

_Arkham._

_His mother._

_Jim._

Jim tucks his hands underneath Oswald's arms as he watches him slide, heaving him back onto the pier gracelessly. He thinks about the parallels, how dissimilar this is to the time he practically threw Oswald off to the sharks. 

Words don't suffice. Even if they would, Jim wouldn't know what to try and say. 

He heaves Oswald back to his car, the shoeless man limping alongside him, crying. Oswald falls asleep in the passenger's seat, shivering against the oncoming cold and his own fear. 

He wakes up in Jim's apartment, plopped on the couch with the television running quietly. Jim is folded up in the matching love seat, wide awake and squinting to read subtitles. He has glasses that should help him see, abandoned on the coffee table, but Oswald doubts he ever wears them. 

The pain in his body is overwhelming, making him seize with every movement he tries to make. Jim's head is lolling to the side, snapping back up at random intervals. 

He looks back over at Oswald's crumpled from every time. 

"Where are my shoes?" Oswald finally asks, making a pitiful attempt to sit up. 

"I'm sorry," Jim puts another pillow beneath Oswald's head and finishes off his beer, "I didn't know it was so... _bad._ " 

Oswald's hair is flat on one side, his face is taught with the feeling of dried tears, all of his clothes are wrinkled and he stinks of salt and feels cold and soggy; he panics. 

He's back on the other side of the bay, gasping for air and wondering how he managed to live. The pain in his leg flares as though it's new and he can taste blood in his mouth and he can taste salt and he can feel it in his sinuses and in his throat. 

_What a crybaby._

Jim sits down on the floor in front of the couch, leans his head against the cushions as Oswald cries. It's a terrible rattling, gasping, halting sound. Jim struggles to look at him. 

He offers Oswald a sip from a new beer when he comes up for air. Oswald takes it, drinks far too much of it, and then places his hand on Jim's shoulder. He holds onto the material of Jim's t-shirt, shaking. 

Jim drinks until this doesn't feel wrong. He falls asleep sitting on the floor. 

**Author's Note:**

> title is a lyric from "okay i believe you, but my tommy gun don't" by brand new.  
> i heard it in a nygmobblepot mix and while i've listened to brand new before this song totally stuck w me. ironic i'm using it in a sideways gobblepot fic. 
> 
> this is one of those things that i never really managed to finish the way i wanted to? it just stopped coming and stopped feeling how i wanted it to. idk man gobblepot and i have a VERY rocky relationship. it either is or it isnt. sucks. 
> 
> anyhow, thanks for reading. here are different lyrics i was thinking of using as a title:  
> "i just wanna believe in us"  
> "it hurts to be this good"  
> "this is the reason you're alone"
> 
> i'm indecisive
> 
> talk to me on tumblr, i'm mayor-crumblepot.


End file.
